Tuesday Tutorials : Katie The Scrapbook Lady : 10 Tips For Templates

If you have never had a chance to visit Katie's site I highly recommend checking it out. One of my favorite things she does is a roundup of memories at the end of each month (she's been doing it for 3 years now). You can read more about her process here.

This week Katie is going to show you 10 of her favorite tips for working with digital layered templates. Don't do digital? Take her advice and apply it to sketches you use for traditional scrapbooking. Here's Katie:

I adore digital templates and I almost always start each scrapbook page with one because of how they streamline the whole creative process. The beauty of digital products is that they can be reused over and over again and that is one of my favorite things about templates. One template can be used many ways to result in unique scrapbook layouts every time. There are also a few great tricks on how to change a template around for even more versatility (and most of them are even valuable for paper scrapbookers who use sketches as well!).

If you are new to using digital templates be sure to read Ali's tutorial for some helpful tips.

Here are 10 terrific tips to get the most out of templates:

1. Use the same template over again in a completely different album, or by making sure plenty of pages separate the layouts if they are in the same album. No one will ever know that you are reusing a template unless they see the two finished layouts side by side. Each page will be unique simply because you use different photos and papers on each one.

These two pages turned out very different from each other, but when you look at them side by side it is easy to tell that I used the same digital template for each one. However, they are placed in different scrapbook albums so I'm pretty certain no one will ever even think twice about the designs being similar.

2. Don't use all the layers on a template to get a different look. You can "turn off" selected layers in PSE and Photoshop (just click the eye next to the layer to make it inactive.) I decided not to use the red title block from the above layouts and I removed some of the paper strips to come up with this page from the very same template. If it wasn't for the measuring tape along the side of the page, I bet you never would have even known it was the same template again!

5. Change the location of the journaling. By using a different space for writing, you can give the template a whole new look. Using the same template pack as listed in #4, I journaled on the template layout around the edge.

6. Re-use holiday or special theme templates. Just because a template is designed for a Christmas layout, doesn't mean you have to use it that way. Of course this set of December Daily templates is great for Christmas layouts.

7. Move things around. The layered pieces of a template can be moved around on the canvas. Grab a shape and stretch it. Or move tags and elements to different locations on the page. It's ok to modify templates, just be sure you mention that if you are posting to public gallery or magazine. I list the template in the credits like 'Ali Edwards template no. 14 (modified)"

Here's a layout using the template with only a few minor modifications.

8. Add more photos to the template. I organize all of my templates by the number of photos they hold, but I force myself to look at them differently sometimes and think about how I could increase the number of photos that would fit within the template design. Or you could remove some of the photo spaces and turn a multi-photo template into a single photo template as well.

10. Stretch the template into a 2 page spread. You can just use the same template on both pages, or you can combine templates or even stretch out some of the pieces of a single template to fill both sides of the 2 page spread. A good way to tie together both sides visually is to have an element like text or a background paper running across both pages.

I bet you can't wait to dig through your template stash now and find a whole new way to use each and every one of them! Enjoy the creativity that can come with finding new and fresh ways to use the same idea all over again.

Katie became a scrapbooker when she was only 14 years old and got her hands on a jar of rubber cement and a giant scrapbook album! She was a die-hard paper scrapper for more than 20 years before switching to digital in 2005.

She is an experienced scrapbooking educator having taught at crops, classes, and online for more than 11 years. She has had a feature article and several layouts published in various scrapbook magazines. Her passions include; scrapbooking, photography, blogging, and tweeting. To see more examples of her work, visit: http://scrapbooklady.typepad.com/ and you can follow her twitter postings at: http://twitter.com/ktscrapbooklady

Katie lives in Utah with her husband of 18 years and her 2 children (ages 12 & 15). Her 15 year old son has high-functioning autism. She keeps busy homeschooling her children using a virtual academy online program, and enjoys playing board games and building legos with her kids.